Category: Berlin to Turkey via Budapest 2024

Friday 26 April 2024

We pulled into Budapest at 10 last night

And this morning it’s the same, without the lights

What a city to end the cruise in. We have one more night on board before we go to stay with Roger Kirk in his Budapest abode. Included in our cruise is a “Panoramic Tour of Budapest”, still with walkie non talk, and we are excited to see what is clearly a very beautiful city

There’s much building work happening, still catching up from the Communist regime

We head up to the Castle, which is a good idea obviously because a few others are there before us

Who do you think the castle belonged to? Well, Marie Theresa of course. She clearly needed a castle or palace for each of her 16 children

The hordes had invaded the Church

We escaped as quickly as we could and sought the views. A little bird told us where to go, as it were

For the views

And so we did

Others found a cosy coffee spot

And I found the Dunce’s caps

We returned to the boat for lunch

And then immediately headed out on foot to find a memorial we had seen from the bus. I shall translate this plaque below for the ease of my reader. TO THE MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS SHOT INTO THE DANUBE BY ARROW CROSS MILITIA MEN IN 1944-45. ERECTED 16TH APRIL 2005

Clearly very moving.

Back on board, we pack and head up to the final dinner, which can’t start until the verbose ‘Hotel Manager’ makes a speech, a long one, which includes him singing “My Way” with frightfully clever new lyrics. You can imagine how much we loved that. But then we had to listen to the Captain talking about how we were the most amazing group of passengers they’d ever had on board and how they long to see us back on board very soon.

Out of our cabin at 8am tomorrow, and off to meet Roger. Budapest has already stolen our hearts.

Thursday 25 April 2024

It’s glorious today. The sun shines and the weather warms. We give a thought to the ANZACs, and as we make our way down the river we see blue sky

We docked in Bratislava early this morning. Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and is quite delightful.

They say that the locals bathe in beer but we have yet to see any evidence of that. They are hard workers though

We follow the Coronation path, which is marked in brass crowns set into the pavement

Following a coronation, in this Cathedral

the Monarch would walk down this route to be adored by the crowds

Some had to be assisted

We are relieved that we don’t have to order food here because our Slav is a bit rusty

And we would have had to order from this

We made time for a coffee

But not an electric one

Before reboarding the boat, we headed to the Art Gallery, which opened at 10am

Except on a Thursday. When it opens at 12. Our boat departs at 11.30!

But at least we saw that many hands make light work

Proceeding down the Danube, we pass through the largest of all the lochs. It was a 30m drop

We sail for the rest of the day and see the occasional castle, as you do

Budapest tonight

Wednesday 24 April 2024

As we approach Vienna, we spot the tallest building in town

To whom do you think it belongs?

It’s cold and it’s wet. This is no way to see Vienna. But we head off on our walking tour anyway

Vienna does not feel like the City of Music today.

We wonder if this had anything to do with Mozart’s erratic behaviour

We admire Marie Theresa, Queen of the Habsburg for 40 years from 1740. The only female ruler, but I think the real reason she is on a pedestal is because she had 16 children.

It’s not easy to see the sights of what is clearly a beautiful city in these conditions. But our tour guide understands that. So she takes us to the shopping centre.

We divert

And take ourselves off on a non talkie, non shoppy self tour.

We find a flower stall

And the Opera House

Traffic appears to be a problem to some

We have noticed graffiti everywhere we have been in Europe and the Viennese have allocated this section of wall for graffiti so that they are not tempted to deface old buildings

Apparently there is enough confusion to warrant this

We are in Vienna, and so we feel it obligatory to have a coffee and cake. We resist these

And settle for a Sachertorte. Delicious

This afternoon Cherrie heads off on an excursion to Schonbrunn Palace, the summer residence of the Habsburg rulers for generations. Ironically, ‘Schonbrunn’ means ‘beautiful spring’. Lost in translation today.

Cherrie particularly wanted to see the gardens

but she was not allowed to go alone so she had to spend more time in the Palace than she would have liked, and less in the gardens. She took this from inside the Palace, but alas no time to get there

But, she did get to a little section of the gardens. This photo shows the front of the Linden tree hedging and the reverse side showing the huge trunks

Some are clearly allowed access, just not Cherrie

And so our time in Vienna has come to a soggy end. This is a wealthy city and back on board our onboard entertainment director tells us about a man who went into a bank with a very large bag. He goes over to the teller and whispers “I’ve got a million euros in cash in this bag”. The teller replies “No need to whisper sir. Poverty is nothing to be ashamed of”

Tuesday 23 April 2024

It’s cold this morning. Colder than ever. Over breakfast we watch the digger dredging the Danube. Apparently this is an ongoing thing, because the river is particularly shallow here

Cherrie braves the cold and goes up on deck. Where she meets only sleet. No one else is stupid enough to be out in this. Even the locals can’t comprehend this weather. But the photos she takes warrant the challenge

We dock in Krems, a small Austrian town, at the eastern end of the Danube, at 10.30am. The boat has forecast “Chance of Rain, 6 degrees”. An hour after docking we head off on an excursion to Gottweig Abbey, constructed in the 11th Century, and boasting 5300 hectares which includes 26ha of vineyards. And 40 monks.

The weather gods following us on this journey have not heard of spring. That beautiful temperate season between winter and summer. We have had miserable weather since we arrived in Berlin, wet and cold. But today takes the torte. As we approach the Abbey

we get a hint of what is to come.

Yes, folks, that’s snow. It’s chilled the wine

And the tourists

The literature we are given states that the most impressive room in the Abbey is relatively small library, filled to the ceiling with 130,000 volumes. It’s closed to visitors.

The Abbey houses the largest private collection of engravings in Austria, more than 30,000. It’s closed to visitors.

We decide against taking a seat

We think about walking through the snow kissed gardens. But they’re not open to non-monks

So we head into the warmth of the Chapel

We climb the stairs of Abbey, which are low, gentle steps. Built so as to cover the women’s ankles, back in the day. The day when women wore crinolines, with their bosoms falling out but their ankles covered. Ankles were considered the height of obscenity, and so the effect was of the women levitating up the stairs. Having checked our socks were up, we proceeded up the gentle staircase to see the friezes we were allowed to see

Outside again, we get some chilling information

Briefly, very briefly, the rain stopped for us to catch (as it were) a corner of the Abbey

But to remind us it was spring, it just kept snowing

The literature we are given describes the slopes of Krems as being bathed in sunlight all day, and thus create some of the best wines in the world. We are yet to see the sun or indeed taste anything that even comes close to a good wine.

To warm up, we return to the boat. Then we walked into Krems, a small university town which reminded us of Tallin, the capital of Estonia, which we briefly visited last November.

The snow has eased but the rain persists. However, we are resigned to it now and can still raise a smile

We met some of the locals, who were also cold

Cherrie was pleased to see these flowers

And we were both very pleased to discover the museum, to get out of the cold and the rain

But it was closed.

Monday 22 April 2024

We docked at 9pm last night, having passed through two lochs. This is the first one.

And this is how far down we go. Long way.

Another 12 lochs between here and Budapest.

We sail by the Bavarian Forest

Linz looks more spectacular at night than during the day.

Another cold day but the temperature rose to 7 degrees eventually. The rain stayed at bay. We joined a walking tour, with our walkie no talkie again. Today’s leader talked more about himself than the city of Linz, which is the capital of Upper Austria. Hitler was brought up here. Not a good upbringing I reckon. This is the balcony from which Adolf made his famous 1938 speech announcing the union of Austria and Germany. A crowd of 250,000 cheered him on

Not a lot to see here and as it’s Monday the museum is closed. So we walked.

We chose to eat lunch in the Cafe Glockenspiel rather than return to the boat. We point at the menu items to order. Not sure what we ate but it was palatable enough.

Linz is where Anton Brukner was born and so the Brukner Music Academy is here. To celebrate his music there is a little on-board concert at 9pm with two local musicians, a flautist and classical guitarist. They open with Eine Kleiner Nacht Music. They play nothing by Brukner as far as I know.

The city seems happy to see us go